A/N: I'm so, so sorry for the looooong wait! If anyone's still reading this – I hope you'll like this chapter, and I'm already writing on the next. I haven't been writing anything at all in a really long time – but I won't abandon this story again. I promise. There will be another chapter soon.

Anger Management – Chapter 10

Jess

The second I open my eyes, I reach for my phone on the nightstand and feel a weird mix of anger and patheticness wash over me as I press a button to light up the display. She still hasn't returned my calls.

She said all she needed was some time. She promised she would contact me if she had any questions at all. Surely she must have a bunch of questions lined up by now. So why hasn't she called me back?

Because she lied. My subconscious hisses. Because she told a bunch of fucking lies to get your hopes up before she crushes them again. He raises his eyebrows at me. Aren't you familiar with her M.O by now?

My heart doesn't say a word – he doesn't have to, his angry glare says it all: he thinks I handled the situation badly. Well, screw him. This is the only way I can let her be a part of my life again. Even he has to see that.

Leaning back against the pillow, I feel her scent still lingering on the pillow next to me; the one where she slept. And even though my subconscious is doing his best to suppress the outburst, I can feel my heart swelling. Fuck! I grab the pillow by the case and throw it across the room to get the scent away from my vicinity.

I was doing fine. I had found a way to pick the pieces back together after she left. I was feeling fucking great. And then she decided to resurface…

A couple of words on my computer screen were all it took to destroy everything and transform me into this pathetic, needy mess. I can't let her do that to me. Not again.

My heart is right. I did handle the situation badly. I handled it badly because I believed in her lies. I should never have left the decision up to her. I should have pressed on; I should have dominated her and the situation until she had no other choice than to submit to me. I shouldn't have given her all this time to think things through. I should have known her thinking things through wouldn't work in my favor.

I have to take back the upper-hand. I'm a changed man and I won't take 'no' for an answer. Not anymore. I'm Jess fucking Mariano and if I want something; I'll make sure to get it whether it's a business acquisition or a new sub. No ghost from the past is going to take that away.

I take a deep breath as I let it sink in. My subconscious is smirking and my heart is nowhere to be seen; the fucking coward is probably hiding away in a corner somewhere. For all I care, he can stay there forever.

Strengthened by this new resolution, I move out of bed and head towards the shower to get started with my day. The first thing I need to do is to call Lana and tell her I'm ending our contract, effective immediately.

Leaning back in my office chair I let out a sigh. The talk with Lana went well, without too much prying she accepted the excuse that I needed time to deal with the previously mentioned circumstances that had caused me to lose control a few days ago. Now, all I had left to do was to convince the previously mentioned circumstance to agree to be my new sub.

I feel the condemning stares from my subconscious as I pick up the phone to try and call Rory again. I can't very well convince her if I'm not talking to her, I snap at him but he doesn't flinch.

He's right. What good is it to call her when she isn't even picking up? I can't fight the disturbing notion at having gone at this the wrong way and scared her off.

I hate to admit to my shortcomings in any aspect of life, but this is unknown territory for me. I've always made sure to choose submissives that are well acquainted with the lifestyle beforehand. I've never taken on the task of introducing someone to it.

If Kayla, at her first mention of BDSM, would have thrown a contract at me with the same take-it-or-leave-it kind of attitude I had when presenting it to Rory yesterday – I would definitely have left it, so why was I expecting Rory to act any different?

Kayla had eased me into it so that when she first brought up the subject of BDSM and me being a Dominant – I already kind of was. When I, much like Rory, recoiled at the word Sadism – back then I lived under the delusion that I was a Good Guy – Kayla simply pointed out that I had enjoyed it that night when she suggested I'd spank her and maybe I would enjoy it even more if we took that one step further. I was eased into it step-by-step.

Instead of letting my heart take the lead in some ridiculously sentimental let's-set-the-time-back love-making scenario with Rory – I should have fucked her real hard and started the morning by pointing out to her how much she had liked it. That would have been the right way to approach the subject of her being my submissive. And maybe it isn't too late to try and change my approach…

Didn't think you actually wanted her to like it, my subconscious pouts. I thought this was all about finally letting her pay for what she did. My heart is standing in the background, watching him pout with a know-it-all kind of smile on his lips.

I feel a grin spreading across my face. Don't worry, I assure my subconscious. I haven't lost sight of the goal – the pleasure is merely the bait I'm going to use to lure her in. And once she's in… I share a knowing look with my subconscious as my heart seems to dissolve into thin air behind him – the smile nowhere to be seen.

Anger Management – Chapter 10

Rory

It takes a couple of seconds before I realize the knocking sound that interrupted my packing is coming from the door to my hotel room. That's strange. I haven't ordered any room service and I don't have to leave the room until tomorrow at noon.

Half-expecting to be met with a cleaning lady here to retrieve some forgotten cleaning utensil or another guest having mixed the room numbers up I go to open the door and find myself completely lost for words when I see who's standing on the other side.

"Jess?" I manage to stutter out after having stared blankly at him for several seconds. He's wearing a grey suit and a matching silver tie and looks not only stunning but also completely at ease.

"You look surprised." He states in a calm voice that matches his posture perfectly.

"I am." I admit, not knowing what else to say. I was sure he would take the fact that I have still not called him back as a rejection and count me out of his life for good. I had both hoped and feared he would.

"Huh." He nods, more to himself than to me. "Aren't you going to invite me in?" He asks after another set of silent staring.

I feel my hand flying up to my hair and raking through it. "Well…um…" Jess tilts his head to the side and smirks and whatever reason I might have had for not inviting him in – it's gone. "Yeah, sure." I take a few steps back and gesture for him to step inside, which he does with slow, deliberate steps.

When he reaches the middle of the room, he stops and looks around but doesn't say anything.

"So…" I start to try and break the silence, but I don't quite know how to continue. It feels so strange seeing him now that I know what he does. It's as if the pieces don't match. The man standing in front of me is Jess. My Jess. But, he is also the man that drafted the contract I threw up on last night. The contract that contains God knows what horrible things he wants to do with women. With me.

Closing the door behind me I flee back to my suitcase and to fulfill the desperate need to occupy my hands with something I start refolding the clothes in it.

"I-I haven't had a chance to look at your…contract yet." I inwardly curse at how weak my voice sounds and that I'm making excuses. A part of me just wants to hand him the tied-up bag with his contract covered in vomit and maybe a bold comment on how I hope I've made my opinion about his contract clear. But I'm afraid he'll leave if I do – and the truth is, I don't want him to.

"Hm." His answer is short and if it weren't for the fact that I personally placed the bag with the vomit-covered contract at the bottom of my suitcase with the intent of disposing it myself away from any nosy cleaning lady, I would have been sure he knew I didn't even open it before I threw up all over it.

I sigh and close the suitcase in front of me. "Listen, Jess…about this whole…you being Dominant thing…" I take a deep breath and meet his eyes that are looking at me with a curious glint in them. Here it goes; I have to tell him I can't do this. I threw up on the contract for crying out loud – I think that speaks for itself!

"I don't think…I mean I can't…" I sigh as I divert my eyes from his and onto the closed suitcase in front of me. "It's not for me."

"Hm." He says again in the same tone of voice as before – as if he already knew all this.

"I'm sorry." I whisper into the suitcase in a lack of better things to say.

"Hm." He repeats for the third time and I don't know if it's his calmness, or the apparent lack of interest to discuss the subject that he brought up by shoving a contract in my hands the night after we made love or the fact that he showed up at my doorstep and still doesn't seem to have anything other than "Hm" to say, but I snap.

"Is that all you have to say?" For a split of a second I see an expression of surprise flashing across Jess' face at the sound of my raised voice, but he quickly regains his calm, almost indifferent posture – and that only agitates me more.

"I'm not the one that likes keeping women as slaves…" I'm very well aware that he pointed out that that's not what this is about, but really, to me – the difference is subtle at best. "…and still I'm the one trying to explain myself to you!"

He still stands in the middle of the room, simply watching my outburst with an expressionless face.

"You have some nerve…" I start moving closer to him, pointing my finger at him as if trying to clarify that it's him I'm talking about. "…coming here and being all monosyllabic Jess when there's so much you need to say." I stop a few inches away from him, not really sure what to do now. "So much you need to explain." I can hear my voice is about to crack up and he still doesn't say anything.

After a silence that seems to last forever, he finally speaks. "You want an explanation?" Just like his face, his voice is void of expression, but at this point I don't really care as long as he's talking. I nod and as I do so, a smirk creeps onto his face.

He leans forward and his voice is only a whisper, but it has gone from expressionless to teasing. "How about a show-and-tell?" And before I can wrap my head around what he's saying, he has closed the gap between us and in one swift move he has pinned my arms behind my back with a firm grip around my wrists.

"Jess!" I exclaim and there's a mix of fear and something else in my voice, something I'd rather not dwell any deeper into at the moment, but that definitely has something to do with the closeness of his body.

He shifts his grip around my wrists, freeing one of his hands and places his index-finger across my lips. "Shh." He smirks as I try to free myself from his grip. "If you look over my right shoulder, there's a watch on the wall." His voice is calm and soft. "You see it?"

"Jess, I don't know what…" His grip around my wrists hardens and I feel my pulse quicken. Words like Punishment and Sadism are flashing trough my mind and I feel like I'm about to pass out.

"You see it?" He repeats, this time with an edge to his voice and with a resigned sigh I nod.

"Give me three minutes and if you still don't want to even give it a try, I will respect that and I won't bother you anymore."

Three minutes. 180 seconds. That's a long time if you're suffering through pain.

As if he feels my hesitation, Jess leans in closer and whispers with his mouth close to my ear: "It won't go any further than this. I'm not going to hurt you; in fact I'm not even going to touch you other than the hold I already have you in."

"But why…" I start, but taking no notice if my interruption, Jess continues.

"We're going to stand just like this and all I'm going to do is talk and explain to you why I think you would actually enjoy this whole…me being a Dominant thing."

It's not the explanation I wanted, but I can't deny I'm curious about what he has to say. And if it's only words – there's no reason to be afraid, right?

"And if I don't agree with you?" My voice is trembling and I'm not sure I want to dig any deeper into why.

"Then I'll let you go." Simple as that. He'll let me go. For some reason I can't quite explain, my heart drops at the thought. Three minutes, then Jess will be out of my life again. For good. How can I say no to three last minutes of standing this close to him, to three last minutes of listening to his voice?

"Okay."

"Okay." A genuine smile creeps onto his face and he glances down at his wrist watch. "Got the time Gilmore?"

I nod, not sure if my voice will actually carry at this moment. Why am I so nervous? It's only talking, it's only words.

His voice is husky when he starts talking and even though he's on the clock, he speaks slowly, letting each word sink in before he moves on to the next. "You know what the one thing that separates great sex from good sex is?" His mouth is moving across my neck as he speaks, as close as it can possibly be without actually touching the skin and I close my eyes reveling in the feeling of his warm breath knowing that this is the last time I'll ever feel it on my body.

His mouth moves towards my ear. "Anticipation." He whispers into it and I shiver.

"Being a Dominant is about building up anticipation." With my eyes still closed I feel his warm breath against my temple, slowly moving down towards my mouth. "About not granting release until the only thing you're able to think about is how bad you want it."

It's hard to focus on his words as his lips are hovering over mine so close I can almost feel them. If I just tilt my head the slightest bit, our lips would be touching. Suddenly, his breath is by my ear again and as if he could read my mind he whispers: "Tell me how bad you want me to kiss you right now."

I feel my cheeks heating and Jess chuckles. "Yeah. Good thing I have you in a hold here, Miss Gilmore, otherwise that only-talking rule would have been broken, huh?" There's a familiar, teasing tone in his voice that draws a smile to my lips as it reminds me of the Jess I used to know.

"Imagine…" Just like that, the teasing tone is gone, and he's back to husky and sexy and slow. "…what it would be like to surrender all control and just revel in that one feeling of how bad you want it." Slowly, his lips are moving back towards my mouth and when they're once again as close as they can possibly be without touching my breath hitches in my throat.

"If I were to kiss you right now…" He whispers against my lips and with my entire being I'm begging him to do just that. Just one kiss. I stretch my neck to move my lips closer to his but they find nothing but air and when I open my eyes I find that he had anticipated my move and moved his head back the second I moved my head forward. He smirks as he continues: "…the mechanics of the kiss would be the same as any other kiss." He draws in a breath and it feels good to hear that it's, although not as shaky as my breaths, not completely steady. "But all this anticipation and want would make it into a great kiss."

He takes another deep breath and closes his eyes for a few seconds before he opens them again and locks onto mine. He wets his lips with his tongue and by now, his breathing is almost as shaky as mine. Without taking his eyes off of me, he slowly moves his lips closer to mine and I'm actually holding my breath waiting for them to reach mine.

"Yeah…" Suddenly his mouth is next to my ear and I stand with my mouth half-open almost feeling the taste of his lips on mine. "…I did promise not to touch you, didn't I?" He teases into my ear and I want to scream out in frustration.

"Okay." I make an effort to keep my voice steady and stern as I wriggle to get my wrists out of his hold. "You've made your point. Anticipation and want makes good things great."

He releases his grip around my wrists and takes a step back. "So?"

"So, what?" I snap, sounding a lot angrier than I intended to.

"So, do you want to give it a try?"

I open my mouth but no words come out. Give it a try? He's got to be kidding, right? But the serious look on his face tells me he's not.

Anger Management – Chapter 10

Jess

"You can't be serious." Rory makes no attempt whatsoever to hide the sound of disbelief in her voice.

"Oh, trust me, Miss Gilmore – I'm very serious." I feel pretty confident in the notion that a large part of the anger she's displaying comes from the fact that I didn't kiss her even though she was practically begging me to.

"You're way out of line here Mister." She starts pacing the room as she speaks. "Not only…"

I can't help myself: "I do prefer it when my submissives call me 'Sir', but if you like 'Mister' better, I guess I could get used to it." She stops dead in her tracks and stares at me with eyes wide open.

I offer her a smile to try and lighten the mood. "Come on, Rory." I go for light and playful, but that's really not a tone I'm used to using and I'm not sure it comes out right as I see my subconscious rolling his eyes at me and Rory shooting not-so-friendly glares my way.

I sigh and sit down at the edge of the bed. "I know it's a lot to take in, and I think maybe I went about this the wrong way by handing you the contract yesterday."

"You think?" She scoffs as she starts pacing again. "You think?" She repeats and I say nothing. I know there's a rant in there somewhere needing to get out before she'll be susceptible for anything I have to say on the matter. My subconscious has sat himself down on the couch and grabbed a bowl of popcorn, waiting for it to begin.

"You think that you went about this the wrong way?" She shakes her head. "And you think that only because you gave a speech about great sex and great kisses I would want to give it a try? Really, Jess? As I recall, your little contract didn't have any mention of great kisses in it. Let me see…" She holds her hand up and starts counting on her fingers. "…Punishments. Sadism. Pain. Dominance. Rules." She looks at her hand where she's now holding up all five fingers. "Did I miss anything? Maybe a whip or something of the likes?"

I repress a content smirk. "You didn't actually read the contract, did you Rory?"

If she hasn't actually read the contract, my chances of convincing her to agree to be my submissive just got a hell of a lot bigger. If she hasn't read the contract she has no idea how screwed up I really am.

"Well, I…" She stops her pacing and sighs. "No." My subconscious makes a triumphant gesture. "Okay? I didn't read your contract." She sounds like a petulant kid as she stares down at her feet. "Are you going to punish me now?" Her tone of voice is mocking as she turns to look at me.

Hell yeah! My subconscious shouts. But we've been through this already, he knows I have to play nice if we want this to work out.

"No." I chuckle, hoping it makes me less threatening in her eyes. "Actually, it's a good thing you didn't read the contract."

"It is?" Her eyes almost seems to double in size.

"As I said, I went about this the wrong way. I pushed you in at the deep end and then I just left you there." She eyes me warily, but at least she doesn't protest. Yet.

"You stopped me before I had used up my three minutes, so you didn't get to hear the suggestion I had in mind."

"Suggestion?" She echoes with the hostility almost all gone from her voice.

"Yeah. As you saw when you looked it up on Wikipedia, BDSM is an acronym consisting of four letters." She cringes and I'm pretty sure it's the S for Sadism that's causing the cringe. I have to keep talking to divert her thoughts for now.

"The first letter B, stands for Bondage – and that's pretty much what we had a very short and simple session of just a few minutes ago when I was holding your hands behind your back, only if we do it right – it's not a kiss you'll be begging for."

Her face turns red, but she still doesn't move or say anything, she just looks at me and for some reason – that's making me nervous so I move on to the next step of my plan and start taking my tie off.

"Today…" I say as I continue untying my tie. "…we'll start at the letter B – nothing else, only the B." She hasn't protested or run for the hills yet, so I continue. "This."I hold the tie up in front of me. "Is the only thing, besides myself, I will use today if you agree to give the letter B a first try." She looks at the tie and follows it with her eyes as I place it on the bed next to me but she still doesn't say anything.

"If you agree to do this I also need you to think of a word you can use if you're feeling uncomfortable and want me to stop and untie you and if you use that word it's a matter of seconds before you're free and the session is over."

"Can't I just ask you to stop?" Her question catches me off-guard and I try not to seem too eager over the fact that she has actually expressed some interest in my suggestion.

"Well, yeah…but sometimes it can be part of the role-playing game to ask me to stop even though you don't really want me to, so it's better to chose a word you would never ever think of using in a sexual situation." She nods.

I clear my throat. "I'm going to go into the bathroom for a few minutes and when I come out, you're either lying on the bed wearing nothing but a pair of panties and that means you've agreed to try this or you'll still be standing here wearing all your clothes and then I'll leave – no questions asked and no more trying to convince you. Okay?"

She nods and with what feels like a whole farm of butterflies roaming through my stomach – at the expectation of her agreeing to this and within time finally working our way up to the S in the acronym of course, nothing else – I make my way towards the bathroom.

Before I step into the bathroom I turn to face her. "You have travelled and seen both the world and your own country – for five years you have explored the world around you, but have you ever really explored the world inside you? You might be surprised at what you can find." She looks completely shocked and I worry I went too far.

"Look, it's really not more complicating than ordering a traditional Ukrainian dish at a local restaurant when you're out exploring the country – you just have to say one word and they'll take the dish away, but at least you did try it." With that I shrug my shoulders and close the bathroom door behind me.